Archinect - News

On the disappearance of American starter homes

2022-09-26T15:38:00-04:00

The disappearance of such affordable homes is central to the American housing crisis. The nation has a deepening shortage of housing. But, more specifically, there isn’t enough of this housing: small, no-frills homes that would give a family new to the country or a young couple with student debt a foothold to build equity. [...] At the root is the math problem of putting — or keeping — a low-cost home on increasingly pricey land.

America has a long history of gradually siphoning away architecture made for predominantly middle-class people (think pre-war buildings in Manhattan or Levittown tract housing on Long Island) and is now simply under-delivering what could otherwise be an equalizing force as a result of prevailing factors like intimidating zoning regulations, prohibitive materials costs, and nationwide lack of available new land.

Related on Archinect: Why is America obsessed with huge homes?

Changes in demand also meant the 2010s were curtains for the possibility of building a home at less than $100,000. Today’s market has gravitated towards so-called "missing middle" construction as historical notions of family composition themselves come into question. This means the future of housing might look closer to Adam Neumann's Flow vision or BIG's Nabr initiative than it does to the archetypal American suburb of the 1950s.

As the Times reports, its cause can also be attributed to the overburdening of bui...

Will Philadelphia Ever Be Home to a Middle Class?

2014-08-19T20:21:00-04:00

Recent research by Pew showed that half of the 20- to 34-year-olds polled did not expect to be living in [Philadelphia] in five to 10 years, largely because of concerns about education and career opportunities (the ones that never knock). I love Philadelphia, it has become my home. But what will happen if the bulk of today’s middle class follows their parents and trickles out to the suburbs?

The people designing your cities don’t care what you want. They’re planning for hipsters.

2014-08-15T13:45:00-04:00

current conventional wisdom embraces density, sky-high scrapers, vastly expanded mass transit and ever-smaller apartments. It reflects a desire to create an ideal locale for hipsters and older, sophisticated urban dwellers. [...] Overlooked, or even disdained, is what most middle-class residents of the metropolis actually want: home ownership, rapid access to employment throughout the metropolitan area, good schools and “human scale” neighborhoods.

The Growing Middle Class of Brazil’s Slums

2014-05-06T13:26:00-04:00

Brazil’s burgeoning middle class have an important place in the country’s slums. This finding is part of a survey released by the newly created Instituto Data Favela which established that, in 2013, 65% of the country’s slum-dwellers belonged to the middle class. In 2003, this proportion was 33%. [...] “But we are not only interested in the middle class,” he argues, “We want to benefit all community residents through sustainable and comprehensive development, achieved through economic avenues.”